For about an hour today I was trying to set up an old (802.11g) Airport Express. It wasn't detecting: on my iPhone, on my Mac, etc. I changed cables, performed hard resets, etc.<p>As I came to find out, Apple decided to drop "support" for this in Mountain Lion. Mind you that the hardware, while not optimal, is still compatible.<p>After a quick Google search, I discovered that you can still download and install the previous version software through a few hacks. See http://frank.is/mountain-lion-and-the-old-airport-utility/ for details.<p>Why is it that we are being pragmatically locked out of our own hardware? While I took the time to find the workaround, the large majority of users are simply forced to upgrade their hardware.
Hmmm... direct from my experience Apple phased out Airport Utility 5.6 many OS updates ago. I have both 5.6 and 6.1 installed so I can control old firmware Airports as well as new. You shouldn't need any hacks or workarounds. You just need to download the old Airport Utility 5.6. While this had been the situation with the software since at least OS 10.6? I say this, after just setting an old 802.11g Airport Express Last week as well as Airport Express, 802.11n from the same computer running ML without problem.